Theological Mysteries – “This year is special for Christians because all the Christian calendars—Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant—have us celebrating Easter on April 20.” Imagining the Divine Drama this Holy Week
Immortality and Immorality – “Apologist Jimmy Akin addresses the question of how living indefinitely would be viewed within Catholic theology.” “Is It Wrong to Live Forever?” (Catholic Answers)
Actual Spiritual Journeys – “Pilgrimages involve traveling to a holy site, not as a vacation but as a mission of “encountering God in a deeper way.” The main goal is transformation, both on the path to the site and at the destination itself … ” FOCUS: 4 reasons to go on a pilgrimage (CatholicVote)
Let Us Choose Jesus – “When Jesus arrives in Jerusalem for Palm Sunday, we must remember that he was there to celebrate the Passover—and therefore the Exodus event.” A Tale of Two Barabbases (What We Need Now)
As a Woman – “A new lesson plan teaching secondary school students that Joan of Arc was “non-binary” has sparked a strong backlash from academics and women’s rights advocates. ” Joan of Arc Was ‘Non-Binary,’ School Textbook Claims (The European Conservative)
Truth and Community – “In an age when so much has been lost—common culture, common purpose, and even common sense—it is no small thing to step into a room where the soul can breathe.” Resisting the Collapse, One Room at a Time (Homefront Crusade)
The Old Testament Conundrum – “In Marcion’s time, the second century, there were still more Jews than Christians spread through the Roman empire. These people laid prior claim to the Hebrew Bible, and denied what the Christians made of it.” The Biggest Christian Thinker You Never Heard About: Marcion, Whose Heresy Is Coming to Your Church Soon (The Stream)
Poetry Matters – His latest work represents four decades of creative and critical acumen. Dana Gioia, Enchanter-Poet (Modern Age)
Restricting Religious Practice – “Clerics in China say new restrictions on religious practice are about cutting Chinese Catholics off from the outside world.” China’s new religion laws a ‘pretext’ for arrests, clerics say (The Pillar)
Recent Transgender Headlines – “Despite high-profile dissidents like J.K. Rowling wielding their cultural influence in defense of sanity, scarcely a week goes by without some eye-popping headline that should remind everybody that the fundamental premises of the transgender movement have logical, predictable, and indeed predicted consequences.” What Will It Take for Europeans To Reject Transgender Ideology? (The European Conservative)
(*The posting of any particular news item or essay is not an endorsement of the content and perspective of said news item or essay.)
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
@ Restricting Religious Practice
We read: “The regulations, billed as 38 ‘Detailed Rules,’ were carried on the website of the Catholic Diocese of Shanghai….”.
For historical perspective, a good time to recall “a series of radio lectures presented under the auspices of the Shanghai Catholic Radio League” beginning in 1939—still ten years before Chairman Mao and his future clones consolidated power over China.
In the first series of lectures, four Jesuit priests offered their first twenty commentaries. In “The Triumph of Christianity” Rev. John K. Lipman, S.J. included this remark about “religion” in China (and other trends):
“Today the forces at work against Christianity are no less powerful than in past centuries. Communism, though pictured as mainly of an economic and social nature, is in the mind and action of its leaders primarily religious [!], or rather, anti-religious. Their business is, like Nero’s, to destroy the Christian name and the spirit of Christ in society. They openly glory in and deify their atheism. Equally as hostile to Christianity are those who would replace the nineteen century old Church of Christ with the worship of nature, and of pagan deities” (from “The Catholic Philosophy of Life,” Tou-se-wei Press, Shanghai, 1939).
@ Theological Mysteries
Always drawn to the real thing, that is, mysteries that are truly mysterious about things that matter David Deavel’s reminder of the 1700th anniversary of Nicaea – that coupled with the rarity of Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, the body of Christianity all celebrating the resurrection of Christ this Easter Sunday May 20 triggers thoughts of, well, mystery.
Is there some ethereal plan afoot or is it all plain coincidence [can we ever forget when lightning struck St Peter’s Basilica the night of Feb 11 2013 just hours after Benedict XVI announced his resignation? And the aftermath?]. Deavel doesn’t fiddle around and instead gets to the meat of the matter, when Jesus asked his Apostles “Who do you say that I am? The answer the bishops gave was resoundingly, God in the flesh! And they wrote a creed rejecting the Arian teaching that Jesus is homoiousion, meaning that He is of ‘similar’ being, with God the Father”.
A self perceived mystery buster it seems clear everything since 2013 has struck like lightning that very identity of Jesus of Nazareth. While Deavel gives a rundown on Dorothy Sayers’ The Man Born to be King, my interest, more concern is that kingship, its realization in Christ, and its vicarious expression in the papacy. Do we have an historical leaching process from the former and transference to the latter? Take the example of Synodal decision making. So, then, might we reasonably expect some not so mysterious declaration that seeks to theologically support that epochal premise? Of course such a proposition would likely draw a response held in check until such occurred. All speculation but that’s what mystery does.
Or, maybe the trendline today is to leave intact ye olde unity of the Triune God and, instead, to erode the unity of Man, and the unity of man-and-woman, and the unity of the Church–by leaving intact Fiducia Supplicans?
Some good news from the BBC today:
“UK Supreme Court rules legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex”
I’m glad THEIR Supreme Court could define who a woman is for us. The last US Supreme Court nominee by Jumpin Joe Biden, when asked, could not say what a woman is when asked.